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Where are you traveling this holiday season? Given where we live, we’re all over the Rockies, of course. Tell us what you have in store – keeping in mind there’s a leather Toque & Canoe bracelet (made by Roots Canada!) in it for the best comment. Contest to wrap midnight, January 7, 2013.

*Contest update. Thanks to Liz for her winning comment on a stress-free Christmas at the Delta Kananaskis – her new family tradition. Your bracelet is in the mail Liz! And to everyone else, we appreciate hearing from you. Your input means a ton to us!

13 comments

Sticking close to home with a few nights at the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise and three days of cross country skiing planned for late December. Also looking forward to having my freshly engaged son and his fiance home for 4 full days too.

Heading for Summerland in the Okanagan. Seventeen members of my family will gather at the Summerland Waterfront Resort and Christmas dinner at my sister’s. We’ll walk daily along the shores of Okanagan Lake, it will be so quiet that you’ll hear the voices of children from the summer. It is melancholy but beautiful to see the Okanagan without the summer crowd.

We are going to Fernie, B.C. for New Years. We love the historic little town and especially the powder dumps that regularly visit the ski resort! Time there with friends has become a tradition (and also dinner at Yamagoya sushi … Mmmm tuna tataki…).

3 or 4 nights at the Delta Hotel in Kananaskis has become our new family tradition. We leave the hustle and bustle of the city behind on Dec 24 and head for the calm of the resort in the mountains. There is always plenty of snow for x- country skiing and snowshoeing and the outdoor hot tub greets us at the end of a beautiful day spent enjoying the great outdoors.
No shopping, cooking, cleaning or stressing has made Christmas a joy again. Drinks and board games by the fire make for some pretty great family memories as well. Can’t wait!

I’m off to the mountains for five days around Christmas to do some hiking, skiing, and relaxing with family! It will be a much-needed break for all of us. Beautiful spot, great food, fantastic company; I’m really looking forward to it!

I’m heading to the many corners of Alberta. Through the Rockies on our way from the coast, up to Edmonton to visit family, down to Medicine Hat for more visits and then settling in Calgary for New Years. Best time of year for celebrating with family and friends!

I havfe just got back from Singapore to visit my sister and her family and my father and his wife who came in from Sydney, Australia to visit. I saw quite abit of Singapore this time and really enjoyed the city and I went over a week without having any gum. They are 80 km’s off the equator and the weather is pretty much groundhog day there, the only question being how much rain will they get on a given day. If one likes to shop Singapore is a destination for you. I enjoyed the foot massages and great reastaurant and bar scene. Then I hopped to Shanghai and Hong Kong on the way back. Hong Kong I am very familiar with and it is my favorite city in the world. Shanghai was new for me and I was warming up to it by the end of my time there.

The remainder of the holiday season will be spent hanging out in Calgary and in Canmore with friends and family

I had a first time experience in the Monashee Mountain range at Monashee Powder Snowcats just before Christmas. After travelling on 45kilometres of logging roads near Cherryville B.C. we were picked up by a snowcat. 75 minutes later we arrived at a beautiful lodge. After 90 minutes of Avalanche training we sat for a fantastic dinner and shared a few stories about an old friend on his 50th birthday. The lodge guides had not seen blue sky for ages and a record early snowfall had everyone every excited. The first day provided us with a saying of “too much snow” as we enjoyed the flakes flying into our faces and we maneuvered our fatboys through heavenly powder. We all gained a new repect for the backcountry, avalanche territory and guide experience and knowledge. When a guide says stay in your tracks, there’s a reason for it. The rookies of course would look at untracked terrain and test it. Before they knew it, they were sucked into chest deep powder and got a quick lesson in exhaustion as they tried do dig themselves out. One guide in front and two in the rear…thankfully. A new respect for mother nature. Day 2 was a day with crystal bue skies with absolutely NO wind. We were in heaven. Great snow. Great food. Great time.

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